


like a rosary around your neck

by avatarkadaj



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Choking, Choking Kink, Fucked Up Sexual Fixation: the fic, Gilgamesh (Fate) Being Gilgamesh (Fate), Homoeroticism, Inaccurate Catholicism, Kirei Is His Own Warning, M/M, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Repression, Sadism, Sexualized Violence, Unrequited Lust, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism, because this is kirei there is only a slight difference, catholicism but horny, he's an enabler and an asshole, sorry but not sorry to all of the catholics out here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatarkadaj/pseuds/avatarkadaj
Summary: "Everyone has their vices." Yes, vices. Like the vice grip he imagines he'd hold Kiritsugu in, like a rosary around his neck, except with his hand around his throat.
Relationships: Emiya Kiritsugu/Kotomine Kirei, Gilgamesh | Archer & Kotomine Kirei
Kudos: 30





	like a rosary around your neck

**Author's Note:**

> this is a... sexual reading on the tension between Kirei and Kiritsugu. I love sexual rivalries and narrative foils in fiction. Kirei very much needs some help but instead he got Gilgamesh and thus had a sadist awakening. Thanks Gilgamesh. This dude is really repressed and I'm exploring that. A lot of these themes are dark, I'm just exploring his headspace; I don't condone violence like this IRL, and if you're having thoughts like the ones outlined below you really need to seek some help and find a healthy way to cope with it.
> 
> That being said, mind the tags, you've been warned.

“So the man of God is but a man, I see.”

Gilgamesh’s voice is light and teasing. Kirei doesn’t have to see him to know he’s smirking with satisfaction, his eyes suggestively trailing down Kirei’s body down to his crotch and back up again.

Kirei’s expression doesn’t change. “We are all but human, flawed, imperfect creatures who cannot achieve God’s greatness.”

“I wouldn’t consider the thing that brings you joy to be a flaw. Everyone has their vices,” Gilgamesh says easily.

It’s always something with him. Always some kind of retort. If Kirei didn’t enjoy his company, and didn’t have use for him in the long run, he would have throttled him by now.

Vices.

Like the vice grip he imagines having around Kiritsugu’s throat, like a rosary around his neck, choking the life out of him and leaving him sputtering.

He wonders if Kiritsugu’s dead-eyed, defeated and void look would waver when he’s holding him by the throat and crushing his windpipe.

Something in his expression must’ve changed then, because Gilgamesh chuckles over his wine glass in his direction.

“Caster said something about your God being a cruel one. If he was right then, well, truly, you would be a man of God after all,” the heroic spirit muses, taking another languid sip.

“It’s debatable, if God is cruel. Or rather He is just well versed in tough love,” Kirei offers back, turning to look at him.

He’s laying there, stretched out like a cat, a wine glass that’s already half empty in one hand that’s held indelicately. Heavy yet delicate jewelry, loose soft shirt and those awful snakeskin pants. It’s incredibly vulnerable and that’s what makes it _not_ vulnerable at all; Gilgamesh is powerful enough to _appear_ like a wanton bratty fuck toy because he knows nothing could come close to hurting him anyway. There’s no point in looking poised and proper, like Saber. He can afford to be relaxed.

Gilgamesh smiles over the rim, and Kirei can see the glint of his canines. “Tough love is awfully euphemistic, don’t you think?”

The joke is too obvious to make of course, and Kirei responds with something like a soft snort. Typical. Lewd.

Then again, he had partaken in _all of the pleasures of the world_ , so…

“Perhaps that’s why you were so unsatisfied,” Gilgamesh continues, and he doesn’t use inflection to emphasize the word but Kirei hears it nonetheless. “You’ve spent so long chasing heaven, but what you really need to fulfill your desires is to be more like your God.”

Kirei considers it, deflects. “And if God isn’t cruel, then I’ve abandoned His teachings of healing.”

“Then you’ll have plenty of time to repent,” Gilgamesh says with surprising authority and finality, uncrossing his legs. “After all, doesn’t He believe in forgiveness of the devout and righteous?”

Kirei pours his own glass of wine in lieu of answering.

Kirei doesn’t remember the exact date he started watching Emiya personally, when it went from reconnaissance to stalking, but as a habit it’s both incredibly dangerous and rewarding. Or maybe it’s _because_ it’s dangerous it’s rewarding. No one can catch Kiritsugu off guard, not really. But the thrill of it, this hammering of his heart in his chest, the rush of his pulse, is worth chasing; it’s so rare to feel. To really feel pleasure like this.

He leans back from his position at the window, stretches his shoulders. Without binoculars, he can’t see too well Kiritsugu’s exact expressions. But from here he can tell that he’s still riled up but trying to hide it. The mage hunter is still pacing back and forth in his hotel room across the street, running preparations and doing his best to keep everything running smoothly according to plan.

There’s something under the stiffness he usually operates with. Kirei suspects the mask – the emptiness he thought Kiritsugu lived in – is slipping. It’s getting closer to the endgame, things are running toward the finish line. Time is almost up.

He wonders if he can get a closer look.

“I can get much closer to Kiritsugu than you can, if you’d like,” Gilgamesh offers, offhanded and casual.

Kirei shakes his head.

“You enjoyed spying on him before with my assistance. I don’t mind helping you once in the pursuit of pleasure,” Gilgamesh counters him, teasing.

“It wasn’t like that,” Kirei explains, as if offended. Defensive.

“Come now, dog, no need to bark,” Gilgamesh chides, pouring a drink for them both. “Don’t try to fool me. I know much more than you in these things. I can tell when someone’s holding themselves back from what they want.”

Kirei huffs quietly and takes a drink. It really wasn’t like that.

“Don’t try to act high and mighty now,” Gilgamesh taunts. “It’s difficult to carry on a conversation without words but I am unafraid of reading you like a book. Your holiness doesn’t save you from your depraved desires. Not that I’m judging you, of course. Rather, consider it an encouragement.”

Kirei makes steady eye contact with him for a moment so his words will sink in better.

“Have you considered that I don’t want you to do it?”

Gilgamesh mulls it over, savors his tone and inflections over a long sip of wine.

“Ah,” comes the sound of recognition. His cat like eyes widen, like when a cat sees its prey. “Victory really is sweeter when you claim it yourself. So it is with pleasure.”

Kirei nods, takes a drink without speaking.

It wasn’t easy, considering all things, to metaphorically see the slippery slope and grab the sled. He was a man of God, of Faith, a believer all this time. He had been devout but found no joy; so was the way many felt about their faith. But his lifetime indoctrination still held him back, some kind of desperate cling to morality.

But these… these new paths, these new acts… God surely made a sinner in him.

Technically, healing the wounded and sick was a holy act, sanctioned by God. It was a mandate from Heaven to do kind acts, help his fellow man, to emulate Christ. He knew the Biblical scriptures well.

The smile on his mouth when he watched Kariya Matou recoil and writhe in agony, the way he enjoyed all of his noises and whines of pain, was far from holy, however.

It was more of a gentle lean, a prodding not unassisted by Gilgamesh, into the unholy waters of a sadist. Watching Kariya suffer in mental anguish, the pay off of the long con in discovering Tokiomi was already dead and looking guilty for it in the eyes of Aoi—ruining that relationship from a distance, letting the pieces fall into place as it all shattered… now that was sweet.

Kirei couldn’t really decide which was better, his suffering wails, nonsense noise of pain, or the way she feebly resisted death at his deranged hands, the way she sputtered, choked.

(A more perverse man probably enjoyed the way he pressed into her, his leg shoved between hers, keeping her still; her choked gasps close to pleasure noises, the way her body rocked against him in protest but yet not unlike the fornication of a husband and wife. He saw no pleasure in it.)

Gilgamesh had smiled, as if truly pleased to have helped him find his true calling as a tactical sadist. Truth was Gilgamesh was just was debased as Kirei was, if not more so, and had long ago accepted it. 

(He probably _did_ enjoy the way the two of them looked and sounded like they were fucking. Debauched bastard.)

Kirei couldn’t help but at the time to want to try it again, to watch more suffering.

He wondered if Kiritsugu could scream like that, how his voice would pitch. Wondered if Kiritsugu would make the same helpless sounds as his wife when Kirei put his hands around his neck.

\--

Kariya had been… exciting to inspect and torture because for all his suffering, for all of the pain, he still sought something pure. He still longed for joy; if not for himself, but for someone else. (For a little girl named Sakura, he would learn later.) As Gilgamesh taunts, Kariya _was_ the only one Kirei had thoroughly investigated with Assassin; and he wasn’t _wrong,_ because he did want to know about it. Gilgamesh assumed it was the latent sadism in him; he wasn’t entirely incorrect once more. But part of him for him was finding what made Kariya _tick;_ what was worth it to him, for all of this? It was evident that because of how much he anguished he must also feel joy, he didn’t need to verify it.

Kiritsugu, on the other hand, interested him because Kiritsugu _must_ be like him. Kiritsugu _must_ be as hollow and empty and ruined. So why? What did he seek in the Holy Grail?

If Kiritsugu could feel joy, _how_ did he do it?

Another thing of interest was Kiritsugu to his wife, Irisviel. She was ever a perfect wife; soft, kind, reliant, submissive. She did everything right. But he never saw Kiritsugu smile at her, never saw them be close. Did he love her, really?

Surely not as much as Iris loved him. Iris endured a lot in his name; some of it personally at Kotomine’s hands.

Iris had been… interesting to suffocate. It’s likely where his fixation on it originated. Watching her squirm in his grasp, like a delicate little mouse in the grip of a cat. In the forest, demanding answers from her, it would have been easy to do it. But it wasn’t the right time. He had, in retrospect, enjoyed it but pushed it down. It wasn’t _right._ It had been a means to an end, not a perversion. He was so much more intimidating than her, he didn’t need magic to take her out. She was small, frail. It was _easy._

It wasn’t until it was closer to the end game he really accepted it for what it was. Sadism.

When he choked her out in the middle of the floor, her breath coming in strained, manically demanding answers from her… that was when he enjoyed it. When his careful mask of emptiness started to crack. Her stupid answers – about heroism and hope and being a monster of a human to achieve it – he hated it. It was so _naïve_ , it was unbearably innocent and childish. _That_ couldn’t be right. He didn’t _understand._ He squeezed around her throat, listened to her choke on her own moronic ideals. She was a _homunculus;_ she wasn’t even a person and yet – she was willing to pay this price for his heroic goals. Pathetic.

There wasn’t a part of him that could stand her. But he could enjoy the way her hands feebly attempted to defend herself, the gasps of desperate air. Tears forming in her eyes as she choked, his hands steadily increasing the pressure. He rattled her, like a dog with its teeth around the throat of a cat. The satisfying sound of her neck as it snapped, the feeling of release.

Imagining Kiritsugu finding her body, broken, mangled.

That was satisfying. That was a rush of pleasure.

It didn’t last. It wasn’t enough.

Later, when he’s alone, he contemplates it being Kiritsugu instead. About asking him the same questions, _what do you want from the Grail? How can you possibly feel joy?,_ about choking him over his own stupid answers. The sputtering sound, desperate writhing, trying to spit his ideals. He wanted to see the man underneath, wanted to know if Kiritsugu was just empty like he was. He wants to know if he really is the pathetic idealist that his wife made him out to be, wants to know him intimately while he pins him to the floor and empties his lungs of air.

He considers alternates to using his hands – his hands would be so personal; it would be so _fitting_ to choke him with the same hands that snuffed out his wife. The cross he wears would be especially ironic – Gilgamesh would consider it kinky, probably – and it would be so _impersonal_ and yet holy _._ Wrapping the chain around his neck and tugging, the metal digging in to soft skin as Kirei pulls them so they’re nose to nose, so close he could see the panic in his eyes as it got harder to breath.To kill a man who pretends to be holy and just with a priest’s necklace, snuffing out a wicked life between the pews of the church.

It’s what Kiritsugu deserves.

Kiritsugu would put up a fight, he thinks. He always does. Even at the cost of his own body, the mage continues fighting. He wouldn’t be like Iris or Aoi, weak, pleading, unable to put up a fighting chance. Kiritsugu was strong, resilient. He would put his whole body into it, arching his back, his hips, pushing at his chest, twisting and squirming. Kiritsugu would never give him the satisfaction of begging but Kirei can fantasize about the sound. It would please him, either way, whether he begged or not. Dominating him and crushing his windpipe, his throat so soft and vulnerable under his palms, while he fights to the very end is a recurrent thought that permeates his sleep in place of dreams.

It would take a while to finish the job, panting and sweating with exertion over his body.

Kirei thinks it would make the final snapping of his neck a lot sweeter, too.


End file.
